Jeremiah - Joy

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Sermon Text

Sermon Text: Scripture

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Passage:

Formation Journal Page Number:

Jeremiah 23:5–8 CSB

5 “Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration— “when I will raise up a Righteous Branch for David. He will reign wisely as king and administer justice and righteousness in the land. 6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. This is the name he will be called: The Lord Is Our Righteousness. 7 “Look, the days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’ 8 but, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the land of the north and from all the other countries where I had banished them.’ They will dwell once more in their own land.”

Opening Illustration:

High school - you get out and you are like - what was that all about? Why did I care so much? You are under a new administration!

Here’s the deal that’s the way it is with this life. We can get so caught up with the pressures of this world, that we forget that we are free.

Joy comes from being free of having to measure up.

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Getting into the Sermon

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Everyone is looking for a form of Righteousness

Righteousness is conforming to a standard and each standard has it’s commandments.

So in high school - the standard was being cool and it had commandments - Do you have friends, are you wearing the right clothes, do you have the right haircut, what kind of car do you have. There’s all these commandments for the standard of cool.

Now in this passage,

So let’s look at the history of this passage. History of the OT - placing it in history

There was a good king - Josiah but he died and then had a series of bad kings who reigned for such short times that this prophecy could have taken place during any of them.

The first king Jehoiakim, reigned the longest but he saw the first exiles taken.

Now, there was already the first group of people taken. Daniel, shadrach, meshak, and abendigo.

Then there was Jehoichin - second wave taken

and then zedekiah - who was the final king and the final wave.

So this was written either after the first wave or the second wave. The final wave was when Jerusalem was destroyed - so it had to be before that.

So here is what Jeremiah saw -

He saw people using God’s name to live by Baal’s morality and had pagan expectations of blessings

Imagine being Daniel who see’s all this and he has to get taken away. It’s their fault!

But the big thing I want to point to is that the enemy that is defeated by Christ is bigger than just Satan. We talk about it being three things, the sin inside of us, Satan, and the cultural influences that pressure us towards sin.

They are all around us. It’s this last one that I want to focus on today - how Jesus first coming and second coming give us joy in his defeat over the cultural pressures towards sin.

Now when we think about false teachers, most christians are able to tell the religious false teachers. That doesn’t seem to me like a big threat here. I think its the more subtle pressures that shape us and that we feel.

So there are 17 shopping days until christmas. How do you feel about that. Are you ready for that?

When our kids were younger we really wanted them to have big amazing christmases. We wanted every year to big a grand. Now, we didn’t have the money to make that happen but that was what was in our heart.

I still remember the year we bought them pillow pets- they are pillows that fold into animals. They opened the gift and freaked out - Pillow pets! I still watch the video sometimes.

Less amazing was the year that I decided to build them a wooden dollhouse for their barbies. I spent weeks on this thing. But to be honest, I didn’t get it finished. Like it wasn’t painted. But it was my first woodoworking project. They came out and saw it, and one of them shouted - bunk beds? No, it’s not bunk beds its a house! It basically became storage. The highlight of my owning it was that when we eventually put it out on the street for garbage, someone came by and scooped it up within a few hours - I guess they wanted bunk beds or something.

How’s your heart this holiday season. How is the pressure you feel. See our culture shapes us to believe that the gifts we buy and give define us, this is what childhood is about. It’s what the season is about.

We feel incredible pressure. We are taught to measure our worth by our finances. That’s what this season does.

Some people define themselves by how clean their house is and they watch youtbue videos.

People want us to hussle, we are supposed to sleep four hours a night, work seven days a week and make a million dollars by the time we are 30. Some how I failed that one - guess I slept too much.

Or the success trap. If you are in middle school or high school people will ask you, your whole life - what do you want to be when you grow up? Why? Because we are judged by our perceived career success. We internalize it.

By the time you are in late high school, if you don’t have your whole life planned out, you feel like you are behind. The pressure is intense.

How does that shape us? One way is it makes us incredibly busy.

There’s been a phenomon I’ve seen during my life. When I was growing up, nothing much happened on Sundays. IEven though most people didn’t go to church, they had Sunday’s off. I still remember the first time I saw organized sports little leagues that played on Sundays.

And the question became to what degree is it legalistic to have sports or work on Sundays. How strict should we be? It was a new question because it just started to happen. People felt shackled by the idea of the Sabbath.

Now I talk to people and they are absolutly ragged. So busy. It’s convinced me that God’s sabbath wasn’t so much a legal shackle as a kindness. We need rest.

The older I get, the more I become convinced that the 10 commandments aren’t harsh restrictions made to keep us under control but were the kind gifts of a loving God who created the world and knew how it was supposed to work.

I mean look at them:

You shall have no other gods before me - do you know what the other gods were like? They were angry and cruel

2. Don’t have carved images, don’t worship idols. The god’s of human imagination are never as loving and good as the true god.

3. you shall not take the name of the Lord in vain - why take it in vain? You can pray to the Lord and use the name of the Lord with actual power!

4. Remember the sabbath - you need rest. You need a day off!

5. Honor your father and mother - listen to the wisdom of the people who have a stake in your success or failure.

6. You shall not murder - live in peace. Isn’t peace great!

7. You shall not commit adultury - instead wor to have a great marraige

8. you shall not steal - freed from the pressure of valuing things.

9. don’t lie - live honestly so you don’t have the pressure of a secret life

10- don’t covet - live satisfied with what you have.

Listen - here’s what I mean by all this the living for God is better than living for the values of the world.

The culture is going to create icons of what success means. Of what it means to live the good life. Some of it, will match what God says, but a lot of it won’t.

That’s the false prophets trying to form you. So we live with this pressure. With this angst, like high school. Am I enough? Did I do enough?

And its into this that Jeremiah looks into the future and gives us the prophecy of Jesus.

Jeremiah 23:5–8 CSB

5 “Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration— “when I will raise up a Righteous Branch for David. (Because the all the kings of the day were horrible and evil) He will reign wisely as king (again, the local kings were fools. But it’s not just our kings that are foolish, it’s people who try to rule us and can never tell us what is going to make us whole. and administer justice and righteousness in the land. (He is the only one who really knows what’s right and wrong)

But now look at verse 6

Jeremiah 23:5–8 CSB

6 In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. This is the name he will be called: The Lord Is Our Righteousness.

What does Jesus invite us into? A life of peace and justice. Look at the last line, the LORD is our righteousness.

Now I want you to notice something - the word LORD is in all caps. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and it is translated into English. There are several words that can be translated to the english word lord. Sometimes, its a title, like if you think of an english lord and lady. Sometimes it means Adonai which is god’s title for master.

When you see Lord in all caps it means Yhwh which is the proper name of God. Not a title. Right, you might call me pastor, that’s my title. You could call daniel Doctor, that’s his title. His name is Daniel. My name is actually Anthony but nobody really calls me that. So Yhwh is God’s name.

So here’s what this is saying - it is saying that the messiah, the one who is coming is actually going to be God and that God is going to be our righteousness.

How does that work - the gospel - great exchange focus on righteousness.

So that’s exactly what happened. If that’s true, if that’s true for you , then you don’t get righteousness from other things. Righteousness is conformity to a standard.

The lord is our righteousess. You confrom to the standard because of Jesus.

So we can be saved. We can be secure.

The anxiety we felt in high school, was that there was a standard that we didn’t conform to. Nobody did. So you were always off. We weren’t secure.

But now we can be secure - why because God is our righteouseness. You can have actual peace!

Jeremiah 23:5–8 CSB

7 “Look, the days are coming”—the Lord’s declaration—“when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives who brought the Israelites from the land of Egypt,’ 8 but, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought and led the descendants of the house of Israel from the land of the north and from all the other countries where I had banished them.’ They will dwell once more in their own land.”

I love this final part. Because up to this time, salvation from Egypt was the big thing in Israel’s history. Everyone looked back on that and said that was the sign of God’s faithfulness.

But now we have something bigger. Something more profound.

So here’s the deal, this holiday season, as you feel like you don’t conform to the standard, as you strive to conform, traquilo. Rest. It’s ok.

Money isn’t the standard. Family isn’t the standard. None of that is the standard. Christ allows us to conform to the standard.

Lord’s Supper:

On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 

Benediction:

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD makes his face shine upon you and be gracious to you:

The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.